Canada Finally Drops All Vax Mandates

 On October 1, 2022, Canada finally dropped all vaccine mandates including no more vaccine requirements, no AriveCan, no masks, no quarantines and no testing.  What a huge relief!!!  Let's hope and pray that we Americans and Canadians and other countries worldwide will never have to go through those horrible mandates including lockdowns ever again.  What a devastating effect that has had on so many people and so many businesses!

We have not had an income for virtually three years and yet we were fortunate that we had fairly recently paid off our mortgage, otherwise we may have gone under.  Other resort and camp owners in Canada were not so fortunate.  We are so thankful for our wonderful guests who have stuck with us as much as they possibly could, hoping things would change.  And we do believe that things are going to get better and better.

Because of a record amount of snow here in northern MN last year, we had unprecedented flooding in May and June in the Grand Marais area.  This was also the case in northwestern Ontario in the Ignace and Dryden areas.  We were alerted by our friend in Ignace who is the grader operator on the 325 road that two of our docks had gotten away from their posts and were stuck on the rocks above the rapids.  There were also quite a few dock platforms missing from the stationary pipe docks. He even took some pictures to email to us and alerted the conservation officer who kindly contacted us about it.  

We were also sent pictures by some of our guests who were fishing on Indian Lake and went up the river to check out our camp.  They saw the problem and even tried to dislodge the docks by pulling them with their boats.  But the docks were stuck pretty well by their cement anchors.  

A wonderful friend on the neighboring Mameigwess Lake also contacted us about the situation and with our permission went over every part of the resort taking pictures to show us that everything was in tact except the docks.  The only problem was that we couldn't do anything about it ourselves since we were not allowed into Canada due to the Emergency Act preventing all unvaccinated people from entering Canada since January 15, 2022.  

However, in late September we received a notice from the Ministry of Natural Resources stating that we were being required to retrieve the stranded docks by October 15, 2022 or we would be fined. We tried to find people in the area who we could pay to figure a way to retrieve the docks.  It wasn't something we really wanted to entrust to anyone else because we knew it might be dangerous and could incur damage to equipment used to do the job.  Plus there is the current that could pull them over the rapids.  

Then thankfully a week later we heard that on October 1, 2022 Canada was dropping all vaccine mandates and we could easily cross the border.  We didn't know if John could just go up there to fix the situation or if the border agents would require him to apply for and purchase a work permit to do the job.  Work permits for us last up to six months and he would only be up there a week at most to do the job.  

John called the border ahead of time to ask what would be required in this situation and they said they would have to determine that when he got to the border.  With the letter in hand from the Ministry of Natural Resources and letting them know we were not going to have any guests for income, they allowed John to just go to camp to rectify the situation with the docks without getting a work permit.

This was going to be a quick in and out of the country.  John did not even turn on the water to the house. He did glorified camping and ate meals I prepared before he went to make it easy for him.  He was very focused on the job at hand and worked from morning till night each day.  He left Grand Marais on Saturday. The first task when he got to camp was to remove the dead birds caught in the stove pipe from our free standing woodstove in the house.  That seems to happen every year.  It is their favorite place to make a nest.   

Then on Sunday he landed a boat and checked out the stranded dock closest to the opposite shore.  On his own, maneuvering the boat and getting wet up to the top of his legs, he was able to free the dock. and pull it back to safety to tie it off.  The other dock was going to take a lot more effort.  He had even checked in Ignace with a man who had a tow truck with a winch to see if he could help pull it out.  This gentleman had agreed to come out on Sunday just to look at the situation to see if he could indeed use his truck. He did not show up on Sunday. 

On Monday John had arranged for two friends to meet him there at 10 in the morning.  They waited awhile hoping that the tow truck driver would come, but he did not.  They called him and found out he had gotten covid and was unable to help.

That turned out to be a blessing in disguise that saved us a lot of money.  One of John's friends had a big four wheeler with a strong winch and together he and John figured a way to hook it up to the dock with extra tow straps and chains and somehow roll it off the rocks and back to shore.  How grateful we are for his help.  They even found a couple of the missing dock platforms from the pipe docks along the shoreline in various places.  After John left, this same friend found three more of the large platforms from the pipe docks.  There may still be 3 or 4 missing, but it has saved us a lot of work and money to not have to replace all of them. 

John left Agimac camp so thankful that the docks were now securely tied off in case there is high water this next spring and knowing that we should be better prepared to start the fishing season next May having our docks ready to go.  All in all it was quite an adventure.  We cannot wait to see all of our guests next year and stay at the place that we love and enjoy so much.